“They were angry, I thought. Horrified. These teenagers, with their hormones, making out beneath a video broadcasting the shattered voice of a former father.”

“I realized that my eyes were closed and opened them. Augustus was staring at me, his blue eyes closer to me than they'd ever been, and behind them, a crowd of people three deep had sort of circled around us. They were angry, I thought. Horrified. These teenagers, with their hormones, making out beneath a video broadcasting the shattered voice of a former father.I pulled away from Augustus, and he snuck a peck onto my forehead as I stared down at my Chuck Taylors.And then they started clapping. All the people, all these adults, just started clapping, and one shouted "Bravo!" in a European accent. Augustus, smiling, bowed. Laughing, I curtsied ever so slightly, which was met with another round of applause.”

“I hate being a teenager.""Why?""Hormones." With a sad half smile, he left.”

“Are you menstruating?what?You're angry. Women are often angry when they menstruate. It is the hormones.”

“Teenage hormones plus a few hot guys equals Barbie blood bath.”

“I’d found boys were fairly simple creatures to figure out, at least on a primal level—on a mind, heart, and soul matter they were about as confounding to me as thermal dynamics—and since primal was just a nice term for raging hormones, I decided to use their overabundance of teenage boy ones to my advantage.”